CHAPTER XVI

Valancy had walked out to Roaring Abel’s house on the Mistawis road
under a sky of purple and amber, with a queer exhilaration and
expectancy in her heart. Back there, behind her, her mother and Cousin
Stickles were crying—over themselves, not over her. But here the wind
was in her face, soft, dew-wet, cool, blowing along the grassy roads.
Oh, she loved the wind! The robins were whistling sleepily in the firs
along the way and the moist air was fragrant with the tang of balsam.
Big cars went purring past in the violet dusk—the stream of summer
tourists to Muskoka had already begun—but Valancy did not envy any of
their occupants. Muskoka cottages might be charming, but beyond, in the
sunset skies, among the spires of the firs, her Blue Castle towered.
She brushed the old years and habits and inhibitions away from her like
dead leaves. She would _not_ be littered with them.

Roaring Abel’s rambling, tumble-down old house was situated about three
miles from the village, on the very edge of “up back,” as the sparsely
settled, hilly, wooded country around Mistawis was called vernacularly.
It did not, it must be confessed, look much like a Blue Castle.

It had once been a snug place enough in the days when Abel Gay had been
young and prosperous, and the punning, arched sign over the gate—“A.
Gay, Carpenter,” had been fine and freshly painted. Now it was a faded,
dreary old place, with a leprous, patched roof and shutters hanging
askew. Abel never seemed to do any carpenter jobs about his own house.
It had a listless air, as if tired of life. There was a dwindling grove
of ragged, crone-like old spruces behind it. The garden, which Cissy
used to keep neat and pretty, had run wild. On two sides of the house
were fields full of nothing but mulleins. Behind the house was a long
stretch of useless barrens, full of scrub pines and spruces, with here
and there a blossoming bit of wild cherry, running back to a belt of
timber on the shores of Lake Mistawis, two miles away. A rough, rocky,
boulder-strewn lane ran through it to the woods—a lane white with
pestiferous, beautiful daisies.

Roaring Abel met Valancy at the door.

“So you’ve come,” he said incredulously. “I never s’posed that ruck of
Stirlings would let you.”

Valancy showed all her pointed teeth in a grin.

“They couldn’t stop me.”

“I didn’t think you’d so much spunk,” said Roaring Abel admiringly.
“And look at the nice ankles of her,” he added, as he stepped aside to
let her in.

If Cousin Stickles had heard this she would have been certain that
Valancy’s doom, earthly and unearthly, was sealed. But Abel’s
superannuated gallantry did not worry Valancy. Besides, this was the
first compliment she had ever received in her life and she found
herself liking it. She sometimes suspected she had nice ankles, but
nobody had ever mentioned it before. In the Stirling clan ankles were
among the unmentionables.

Roaring Abel took her into the kitchen, where Cissy Gay was lying on
the sofa, breathing quickly, with little scarlet spots on her hollow
cheeks. Valancy had not seen Cecilia Gay for years. Then she had been
such a pretty creature, a slight, blossom-like girl, with soft, golden
hair, clear-cut, almost waxen features, and large, beautiful blue eyes.
She was shocked at the change in her. Could this be sweet Cissy—this
pitiful little thing that looked like a tired, broken flower? She had
wept all the beauty out of her eyes; they looked too big—enormous—in
her wasted face. The last time Valancy had seen Cecilia Gay those
faded, piteous eyes had been limpid, shadowy blue pools aglow with
mirth. The contrast was so terrible that Valancy’s own eyes filled with
tears. She knelt down by Cissy and put her arms about her.

“Cissy dear, I’ve come to look after you. I’ll stay with you
till—till—as long as you want me.”

“Oh!” Cissy put her thin arms about Valancy’s neck. “Oh—_will_ you?
It’s been so—lonely. I can wait on myself—but it’s been so _lonely_.
It—would just be like—heaven—to have some one here—like you. You were
always—so sweet to me—long ago.”

Valancy held Cissy close. She was suddenly happy. Here was some one who
needed her—some one she could help. She was no longer a superfluity.
Old things had passed away; everything had become new.

“Most things are predestinated, but some are just darn sheer luck,”
said Roaring Abel, complacently smoking his pipe in the corner.